


the silence

by takodanarey (aanathema)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, F/M, First Kiss, Late Night Conversations, One Shot, Post-Canon, Talking, the author is sleep deprived and can't get enough of these two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:20:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24128812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aanathema/pseuds/takodanarey
Summary: “You like quiet, don’t you?” she says after a breath. “You seem to enjoy it.”“Yeah. When you can feel the history of things through the force, you don’t get to enjoy a lot of it.”“On Dathomir, there was too much silence.” She casts her gaze downwards, and he watches as a strand of silvery hair falls across her face. “It was empty silence, with only the ancient power of the place…”“I don’t blame you for not liking it.”“But, strangely, I enjoy the quiet when it’s with you.”-Or, Cal can't sleep, and isn't expecting to find anyone else awake.
Relationships: Cal Kestis/Merrin
Comments: 10
Kudos: 224





	the silence

The Mantis is cold.

It’s all Cal can really think about, now. He isn’t sure what else there is to do, either, than to lie awake - to fidget with the sheets that have suddenly become scratchy and the pillow that just won’t seem to sit right. 

He thinks that there should be more to think about. He’s just destroyed a Jedi holocron, and destroyed his dream of restoring the Order with it. He’s there with a hole through his left abdomen that’s barely begun to heal from an encounter that should have killed him. He watched as Trilla was brought to her knees and that unstoppable red blade slashed across her back, and her call to be avenged echoed through his head and never stopped. He’s touched that saber and felt pain he’ll never possibly be able to forget, seen the dark and what could have been. He’s seen the light fade from too many eyes.

There is so much to even try to think about that he can’t think about any of it, and so he settles on the one, immediate thing: the chill that’s enveloped his quarters - the way it makes the metal of the cot cool to the touch, the way it makes his skin prick. It’s not as cold as Illum, at least.

He can’t help but wonder how it’s possible he’s here: alive, for starters, but reconnected to the force with a newfound family - so far from Bracca and the scrappers’ guild, all the remnants of a war that he’d tried to forget back then. The guilt was something he’d accepted and moved beyond now - one thing he was at peace with. That, at least, is a comfort.

But there are other things now that skirt around the edges of his thoughts, hazy memories of a life never lived that refuse to come into focus, but refuse to drift away. He has no regrets about what he’s done. Yet...he can’t shake them, the possibilities he knows never could be.

He lets his eyes shut, and focuses on the cold again.

Then, he opens them, and he’s left staring at the ceiling. 

He figures he isn’t doing himself much good by just lying there, especially if it’s barely rest. Maybe he’ll go tinker with something, or see if there’s anything he needs to patch up for BD-1 from their adventure at Fortress Inquisitorius. Play that song Cere had written again, let it wash over him in the dark as an echo of calm. Walk around, clear his head. He’s not sure what he’s expecting it’ll achieve, exactly, but it isn’t as though he’s got better ideas.

What Cal isn’t expecting is to find Merrin awake.

“Can’t sleep?” he mutters quietly, unsure of what else to say as he leans in the doorway. She’s sitting in the common area - legs crossed over each other, staring off into the middle distance with a look in her eyes he can’t quite work out. Her hair is down - and it strikes him that he’s never seen her like this before, the edges of her profile illuminated by the glow of the holotable. 

But she turns as though she’s been expecting to see him, and answers with a wordless nod. 

“Yeah, me too.”

He settles in beside her, leaning back against the couch and letting his gaze settle on the holograms, planets shrunk down to flickering projections in a blue haze. They’re planets he’s seen from space and from the ground, planets he’s fought his way across. He’s never really considered the way they’re perfect little replicas, and he wonders if he could pinpoint the Mantis’ landing spots on them. Though he can’t explain it, it’s a calming reminder of his journey, the people he cares about so much.

They sit there in comfortable silence - Cal isn’t sure how long for, but he doesn’t want to know. It’s not something he’s used to, the quiet. He’s used to the noises: the clang of scrap metal, the hum of a saber, the shouting, the blaster fire, the echoes of the past. Quiet moments are a luxury. He dwells in them when he can, but he can’t remember the last time it had all been so peaceful. He can’t imagine a singular moment that has been anything like this, just him and Merrin, awake. 

“I’m glad you are here.” Her voice breaks through the dark after what feels like an eternity. “Not just alive, but here. Now.”

“I’m only here because of you. I would’ve drowned on Nur otherwise.”

She shakes her head. “I still mourn my fallen sisters, and I always will. It is...lonely. But there is a comfort being here, and not alone. You understand that.”

Cal turns to her, resting his face in his palm. “Do you ever think about the way things could have gone?”

“In what way?”

“Just….I saw things in the vault on Bogano that made me realise what would have happened if I kept the holocron. Dark things. And then, the seconds before Trilla was killed - there was light in her. I know it. There was all she could have been, and then, the rest of the Jedi…” He falters for a moment, but Merrin’s eyes are understanding.

“I think about it every day. Ilyana, and my mothers, and my friends….perhaps if they had lived. How different would it be?”

It’s not as though he hasn’t heard it before, or as if he hadn’t been able to know the feeling. But it’s somehow a new experience now, as though the unsaid is instead what binds them. He could talk about it all night - the weight, the acceptance, the way forward. He knows there’s not much that needs to be said.

“Survivors. We adapt.”

Her lips curve upwards as he repeats the words: the ones she’d said to him on Dathomir - but this time, it seems to linger differently, to settle as a reassurance rather than a promise. He’s come to realise he likes it when she smiles.

“You like quiet, don’t you?” she says after a breath. “You seem to enjoy it.”

“Yeah. When you can feel the history of things through the force, you don’t get to enjoy a lot of it.”

“On Dathomir, there was too much silence.” She casts her gaze downwards, and he watches as a strand of silvery hair falls across her face. “It was empty silence, with only the ancient power of the place…”

“I don’t blame you for not liking it.”

“Strangely, I enjoy the quiet when it’s with you.”

She pauses for a second, and he brings himself to meet her eyes as she continues. “It’s not empty. It feels right.”

Cal doesn’t think about it all as his hand moves up to brush back the loose hair, fingertips lightly grazing the side of her face. He lets it linger there for a moment that feels like forever, and he’s suddenly aware of the closeness between them, and the way her gaze is resting on his, and the way she’s really so wonderfully  _ there. _

Her eyes are a hazel shade, reflecting the light from those planetary holograms, wide and gentle in the bluish hues of the dark - and he wants nothing more than to tell her how in that moment, she is beautiful. Stunningly, ethereally beautiful. And in a way that catches him off guard, in a way that seems to make him forget how to breathe for the seconds it takes. 

There is so much to even try to think about that he can’t think about any of it, and so he settles instead, on one thing. 

“What do you want to see, out there in the galaxy?”

“What can you show me?”

Merrin’s hand rises to caress his cheek, and time seems to slow to a crawl as slowly, she presses her lips to his. It’s as though with her touch, everything melts away, and it’s just the two of them in the dark as quiet takes over once more. And again, Cal is only able to focus on one thing: but it’s the way she feels soft against his mouth, the warmth that she seems to radiate. The kiss is gentle - their lips barely parting in a gentle rhythm, and it’s unlike anything he’s ever done before - a flicker in time that is strangely, utterly perfect.

She draws back and they’re left staring at each other, and he’s left in a faint dreamlike state, taking in everything about her and becoming aware of the persistent thudding of his heart. She’s right. He’s never felt less alone.

She tilts her head with a hint of a smirk, and he smiles - their faces still inches away from each other, their gazes unbroken. Before he can even imagine the words to say, he draws her in again. It’s faster this time, emboldened by a confidence he didn’t know he had as their mouths collide. He finds himself draping his hands around her back as she runs her fingers through his hair, clinging to her like she’s his last grasp on reality. Their noses bump together and they laugh into the kiss as their lips brush against each other’s. Her laugh. It’s something he wants to save for a rainy day - a sound that seems to fix everything that is wrong in the galaxy. He lets himself be lost in it - in the tenderness, in the taste of their breath, in everything that feels so finally right.

The Mantis no longer feels cold. 


End file.
